


Song for Someone

by stars28



Category: All Time Low (Band)
Genre: Angst, F/M, M/M, Pining, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-05
Updated: 2018-04-05
Packaged: 2019-04-18 20:18:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14220975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stars28/pseuds/stars28
Summary: Jack is unhappy with Alex not being his, so he turns to cutting.





	Song for Someone

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by U2 lyrics, I don't own the lyrics.

_"I was told that I would feel_  
 _Nothing the first time_  
 _I don't know how these cuts heal_  
 _But in you I found a right..."_  
**\- Song For Someone, U2.**  
  
The first time Jack took a blade up, with the clear intention of pressing it to his skin and drawing blood, was when he was sixteen and in love. He was in love with his best friend, Alex, but his best friend didn't notice his love.  
  
His blood was pumping loudly in his ears, drowning out the sound of Green Day blaring out of the speakers, and he saw the red blood slowly leak out of the cuts he'd made. They weren't accidental, they were incidental, born of the fact that he knew - he _fucking_ knew - that Alex was on a date with his girlfriend.  
  
Once Jack had bandaged - thank God his parents weren't in, they would've asked questions that he wouldn't know how to answer - and covered his newly-made cuts up, he was ashamed. Ashamed that it took a blade to make him forget his hopeless love for his best friend.  
  
He stared at the posters adorning his walls top to bottom with throbbing left arm, and imagined what it would be like to go on a date with Alex Gaskarth.

* * *

_"One man betrayed with a kiss_  
 _In the name of love_  
 _What more in the name of love..."_  
**\- Pride (In The Name Of Love), U2.**  
  
When All Time Low got a record deal with Hopeless Records, it was the best day of his life. Their band, their hobby, was going to be an official band, with tours and everything. The only thing that made Jack's day better was the kiss Alex gave him when they first found out.  
  
It was quick and on the cheek, but even so, it was a kiss from Alex, the one boy he'd loved since he'd met the English boy in 9th grade. For the rest of the day, Jack couldn't stop smiling, and he was glad that the record deal had been sorted and that everyone thought it was due to that, not the kiss.  
  
Later that night, when the celebratory drinking had stopped and when the pure astonishment had died down to a dull hum in Jack's veins, that was when the urge to cut came out. Jack dug his slightly bloodstained blade out from his bag - he hadn't had the chance to wash it since his last _indulgence_. That annoyed him, Jack would rather not get poisoned from cutting, but he would wash it after tonight.  
  
With the blade waiting on the bed next to his hip, Jack methodically took his long-sleeved t-shirt. It slipped off to show off the dozens of cuts littering his arms and even his hips. But none of them were bleeding, giving him the sweet pain that let him forget his love and how Alex had kissed him. Alex didn't love Jack, he knew that, but that would soon go away for a little while.  
  
He picked up the blade and started to cut diagonally across his upper left arm, feeling the blood drip steadily down his arm.

* * *

_"California_  
 _Then we sail into the shiny sea_  
 _The weight that drags your heart down_  
 _Well, that's what took me where I need to be_  
 _Which is here, out on Zuma,_  
 _Watching you cry like a baby..."_  
**\- California (There Is No End To Love), U2.**  
  
Jack was fed up of the pain that he felt whenever he caught Alex speaking softly on the phone to Lisa on tour, and lost himself in cutting while sobbing silently many times in the silence of the bus in his bunk. He'd gotten good at both aspects of cutting and crying, seeing as he did them every night before slipping into false dreams where Alex was his boyfriend and he was happy. Often, upon waking from these dreams - _more like painful nightmares_ \- Jack would cut frantically, as though the sharp, stabbing pain could counteract his heartbreak. It didn't work, and deep in his heart, Jack knew it would never work. But he tried.  
  
When Jack heard Alex whispering over the phone assurances of love to Lisa, the blade he held inside his pocket dug into his hand. Distantly, he felt the blood seep through his fingers and into his pocket.  
  
He was never more glad to be wearing black skinny jeans, though he knew he'd have to wash these jeans, despite them being clean on.  
  
But, he thought, no one would notice so he may as well leave them until he got them genuinely mucky.

* * *

_"The ache_  
 _In my heart_  
 _Is so much a part of who I am..."_  
**\- Iris (Hold Me Close), U2.**  
  
Aching from the show and the new cuts he'd made the night before, Jack sat heavily on the couch, sinking into its cushions, letting them swallow him up so he didn't have to continue the whole 'Jalex' thing that the fans had. Earlier, during the show - which he loved doing, don't get him wrong - the fans had got him and Alex to kiss. And, because it was for the fans _(just for the fans)_ his best friend had gone on the lips, which both broke Jack's heart and made it beat a million miles an hour.  
  
Jack thought that he would be used to this. The kissing, the brief flight of his heart, and the ache that always persisted long after the kiss. He wasn't more than a best friend to Alex, and logically, he knew that, but that didn't stop his subconcious from giving him wonderful, painful dreams about Alex. Jack loved the dreams, and hated them at the same time. He knew it was the only time when he'd get to live his fantansies out.  
  
Maybe he was destined to have no one for company apart from his cuts and the ache in his chest. Maybe he wasn't supposed to have another love, apart from music. Though, now that Jack thought about it, even music was related to Alex. He was the one that introduced himself and thus his music taste to Jack. So Alex was intertwined into everything Jack did and hoped for.  
  
Alex was Jack's one true love, and he felt that, in his heart, there would never be a replacement.


End file.
